The past year may go down not only as the least productive ever in Washington but as one of the worst for the republic.

In both the executive branch and Congress, Americans witnessed an unwinding of the country’s founding principles and of their government’s most basic responsibilities. The rule of law gave way to the rule of rulers. And the rule of reality—in which politicians are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts, as Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan liked to say—gave way to some politicians’ belief that they were entitled to both their own opinions and their own facts. It’s no wonder the institutions of government barely function.

On health care, President Obama oversaw a disastrous and, sadly, dishonest launch of his signature achievement. The president gave an exception to employers, but not to individuals, without any legal basis, and made other adjustments according to his whim. Even more troubling was his message over the past three years that if you like your plan, you can keep it, and that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. We now know that the administration was aware that these claims were false, yet Mr. Obama continued to make them, repeatedly.

In 2014, millions of Americans will likely discover that the president’s claim that the average family will save $2,500 on health insurance was equally disconnected from reality.

The president apologized in part for his statements, but his actions reveal the extent to which he has conformed to, rather than challenged, the political culture that as a presidential candidate he vowed to reform.

The culture that Mr. Obama campaigned against, the old kind of politics, teaches politicians that repetition and “message discipline”—never straying from using the same slogans and talking points—can create reality, regardless of the facts. Message discipline works if the goal is to win an election or achieve a short-term political goal. But saying that something is true doesn’t make it so. When a misleading message ultimately clashes with reality, the result is dissonance and conflict. In a republic, deception is destructive. Without truth there can be no trust. Without trust there can be no consent. And without consent we invite paralysis, if not chaos.

Monday, 30 December 2013

The funniest part of the Phil Robertson contretemps, at least to me, was his comments being labeled “crude,” “coarse,” and “graphic” for breaking the cardinal sin of actually reminding people what homosexuality is.

When police arrived at a building on the corner of S.W. 15th Ave. and S.W. Yamhill on Saturday, they found a naked man standing on the ledge, cutting himself and threatening to jump.

Sergeant Drake Hull who was one of the first officers on the scene, said the man was occasionally tripping and barely coherent as he walked on a 24-inch ledge.

An officer trained in crisis-intervention began talking to the man, who said he was hungry. Police then procured French fries and a turkey and bacon sandwich from the nearby Hotel deLuxe. The man apparently wasn’t overwhelmed when presented with the sandwich.

Hull said, “I think at one point he said he wanted a cheeseburger, but beggars can’t be choosers.” Police were eventually able to convince the would-be jumper to walk away from the ledge and eat.

I’m just wondering how Sergeant Hull would have written this incident up if the man’s reaction to not getting his cheeseburger had been a swan dive. (Via Drudge.)

Obambi and his top lieutenants won’t be going to the Winter Olympics because Vladimir Putin is oh-so-mean to homosexuals. Meanwhile the people who stone homosexuals to death are attacking Russians with suicide bombs, killing them by the dozens. (Via Drudge.)

House lawmakers on Sunday disputed a new report that concludes Al Qaeda played no role in the fatal 2012 terror attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

The report, published Saturday in The New York Times, found no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had a role in the assault that killed four Americans on Sept. 11, 2012, and that it appeared that the attack was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made anti-Islamic video, as the Obama administration first claimed.

Rogers was joined on the show by California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who said, “intelligence indicates Al Qaeda was involved.”

The findings in the New York Times story also conflict with testimony from Greg Hicks, the deputy of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the attack. Hicks described the video as "a non-event in Libya" at that time, and consequently not a significant trigger for the attack

Sean Smith, a foreign service officer, and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were also killed in the 2012 attack.

The responses by Rogers and Schiff Sunday follow New York Rep. Peter King, member and former chairman of the House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, telling Fox News on Saturday the argument in the Times story that the militia group Ansar al-Shariah -- not Al Qaeda -- led the Benghazi attack is an academic argument over semantics.

“It’s misleading,” said King, considering Ansar al-Shariah is widely believed to be an affiliate terror group of Al Qaeda. “It’s a distinction without a difference.”

Schiff, a House Intelligence Committee member, said the story doesn’t conclude the attack was a flash mob attack or a “pre-planned, core Al Qaeda operation.”

South Carolina authorities say a 44-year-old woman angry at a man for returning home without beer on Christmas beat and stabbed him with a ceramic squirrel.

The Charleston County Sheriff’s office says in a report that deputies found a man covered with blood when they arrived at Helen Williams’ North Charleston home early Wednesday. She told investigators the man fell and cut himself, but couldn’t explain why her hands and clothes were also bloody.

Deputies say the man said Williams was so angry when he returned without beer because stores were closed on Christmas Eve that she grabbed a ceramic squirrel, beat him in the head, then stabbed him in the shoulder and chest.

The local rag’s version has a mugshot of the defendant—just as lovely as you might expect—but neither that story nor the linked one has a picture of the squirrel. Some journalists.

Saturday, 28 December 2013

The left had conniptions when Rep. Steve King said this about “dreamers” last summer:

Some of them are valedictorians -- and their parents brought them in. It wasn’t their fault. It’s true in some cases, but they aren’t all valedictorians. They weren’t all brought in by their parents. For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds -- and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’ve been hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.

The U.S. Border Patrol earlier this month arrested a 12-year-old illegal immigrant smuggling 80 pounds of marijuana from Mexico into Texas, reigniting a debate over controversial comments made by a Republican congressman earlier this year about children’s involvement in the cross-border drug trade.